


Dancing At Last

by MelliaBee



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Dancing, F/M, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage, No Slash, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Rescue, Split Timeline Theory, Steggy - Freeform, They’re the Love of Each Other’s Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22475776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelliaBee/pseuds/MelliaBee
Summary: Steve Rogers fought a good fight and finished his course. Now it’s time to finally turn his back on the future and go home to see if he can have some of that life Tony talked about - and maybe in the process he’ll try to fix a thing or two along the way. Post Endgame, split timeline theory. No slash.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Peggy Carter, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 41
Kudos: 128





	1. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

* * *

Steve Roger’s heart banged against his ribs until it hurt. 

If somebody had asked him, he’d have sworn his pre-serum asthma had returned, making it impossible to draw a full breath. His hands were shaking, and suddenly he was glad he hadn’t brought flowers after all. The stems would have been squashed into limp green strings by this point.

And yet the thing he was facing didn’t appear to be frightening at all. It was a plain, ordinary brownstone building, long since subdivided into apartments to allow a variety of families to live within the once-aristocratic walls. It wasn’t in a bad part of town, or a good part, for that matter - just a mediocre area where nobody would look twice at their neighbor.

It was the perfect place for a secret agent to make her home.

People dodged around him where he stood stock-still in the middle of the sidewalk, shooting him half-hearted looks of annoyance. The low sun lanced between the buildings behind him, heating up the back of his neck.

And still he could not make himself move.

......

_ “Does it hurt anybody in the other timeline?” he had asked, back in the future. “If there was a split. Would it hurt anybody?” _

_ Banner thought he was talking about the timeline where Loki took off with the Tesseract. “No,” he reassured the captain. “I don’t think so; not as long as the stones are still in the timeline. Look at what happened with Nebula. Time is malleable; it wants to work out right, even when one thing changes. ”  _

_ Bucky must have heard the conversation. Hours later, he sat down beside the captain, watching the sun set over the lake where they’d laid Stark to rest. _

_ “Say hi to Carter for me,” he said without preamble. _

_ Steve jolted, startled. “What?” _

_ “You heard me.” Bucky aimed a knowing eye at his best friend. “Haven’t known you this long not to notice when you’re thinkin’ about doing something stupid.” _

_ Steve shook his head resolutely against the temptation, folding his threadbare dreams back into his heart. He’d carried those dreams for nearly eighty years now, but since the first mention of the time machine they’d began rising up in his thoughts with increasing persistence. “I can’t. World’s just getting going again. They’ll need all the help they can get.” _

_ Bucky squinted at the light of the sun slanting through the trees, gleaming off the water. “Steve?” _

_ “Yeah?” _

_ “Go home.” The metal hand clapped him on the shoulder. Bucky looked absolutely serious. “Go home, buddy. War’s over. There’s a dame waiting for you. We can take care of ourselves just fine.” _

_ Something swelled up in Steve’s throat - an aching longing for that life so intense that it was physically painful. “But what about you?” _

_ Bucky looked him in the eye, and Steve could see hard-won peace in his friend’s face. “I got a life here. Worked real hard to figure myself out, and I’m happy with that.” He shrugged, a faint twist to his lips that might have been a smile. “Besides, I spent seventy years messing the world up; figure now’s my chance to pay some of that back.” _

_ There were no words. The lump of tentative hope and crippling guilt in his throat was so big that Steve couldn’t speak. So instead he reached across and tugged his best friend - his brother - into a fierce, desperate hug. _

_ It seemed so unfair that only one of them should get to go home. _

......

Bucky would have laughed at him.

Actually, it was more likely that Bucky would have grabbed him by the arm, towed him up the three flights to the apartment where Peggy lived and shoved him bodily through the door.

Steve wiped both hands on his trouser legs, squared his jaw, and eyed the stairs as if they were the front steps to Hitler’s own private bunker.

He could do this. He’d spent more than a decade just  _ wishing _ for a moment like this, and now that it was real he owed it to himself to at least try.

Besides, if Peggy shot him, at least he’d die having seen her one more time.

Taking a deep breath, he set a foot on the first step and started to climb.

* * *

It was the end of a very long day. Peggy Carter braced one hand against her aching back as she straightened from the paperwork she’d brought home and squinted against the sunlight slanting in through her windows to look at the clock. Time had slipped away from her; it was long past time to start getting dinner.

The months since Peggy’s return to the New York SSR office had been marked with little fanfare. Daniel Sousa remained in the California office. For one heady week they’d thought they might have a chance at a future together, but then Thompson had been shot - and somewhere in the middle of all the resulting flurry, Peggy had woken one morning to discover that she was not in love with Daniel.

Certainly she’d liked him - admired him - even had a bit of a case on him - but she wasn’t in love with him.

_ “Is he the love of your life?”  _ Michael had asked her so long ago, and then, as now, she hadn’t known what to say. Fred hadn’t been, and sadly, neither was Daniel.

This realization had been somewhat depressing to both Peggy and Sousa. Perhaps, under other circumstances, they might have overcome this hurdle, might have grown together until they  _ were _ the love of each others’ lives - but the more urgent fact of Thompson’s grave injury and the associated logistical complications brought things to a head too quickly.

......

“ _ It’s Phillips,” Sousa had said quietly one morning, a hand over the telephone receiver. “He wants you to temporarily lead the New York office in Thompson’s place.” _

_ Peggy met his eyes across the crowded office. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears and the click of her teacup as she set it down was nearly deafening. This was the chance of a lifetime for her - the opportunity that she fully deserved, and they both knew it. They exchanged a long look - and then Peggy made her decision. _

_ “Tell him I’m on my way,” she said, and stood. “I - I’m so sorry, Daniel. I want this.” _

_ Sousa hadn’t answered, not in words anyway. He merely held her gaze a second longer and then nodded quietly, regret and respect mingling in his face. She knew then that he would support her to the end. _

_ She’d walked out of the California office feeling saddened, and yet free in a way she hadn’t been in a long time. _

......

Thus it was that Peggy Carter returned to New York alone, with the blessing of Sousa and his promise to back her as the temporary chief of the New York office. Thompson stayed in California, fighting for his life in the hospital. One of his nurses happened to be Daniel’s old fiancée, and from what news had managed to filter back to her since, Peggy gathered that she and Sousa were considering picking up where they’d left off.

Peggy rather hoped that they would. Daniel deserved to be happy.

She resolutely ignored the thought that she herself deserved to be happy too. The one man that she’d thought for certain was the love of her life lay dead in the icy North, laid to rest in her heart. Perhaps, she thought a little wearily, the love of one’s life was only a once-in-a-lifetime thing - something to be cherished when found, and never forgotten afterward, no matter what other loves might come.

The rest of the agents in the New York office had been greatly surprised and a not a little offended at Peggy Carter taking the position of director  _ pro tempore _ . It wasn’t easy; being out west for so long had cost her most of the respect she’d laboriously gained, and the fact that she was still favoring her side even months after being impaled meant that Peggy couldn’t do as much fieldwork as she would have liked. So - it was back to the desk and the paperwork, waiting for the Powers That Be to assign a permanent chief in Thompson’s place, and wrangling for that position herself.

At least she didn’t have to do the lunch orders to do anymore. That was something.

Setting the kettle on the hot plate in her room, Peggy eyed the store of food in her tiny icebox and finally gave up on the idea of anything fancy. Eggs - she’d have some eggs. They still felt like a luxury, though it had been five years since the war and rationing ended.

A knock at the door interrupted her preparations, and she accidentally stuck her thumb through the eggshell, sending yolk and white dripping down her hands and into the bowl along with crumbled bits of shell. Growling under her breath at how jumpy she was, she swiped the dish towel and wiped her hands as she stepped cautiously through the tiny flat. 

Who on earth could be calling?

She paused to slip her gun from the side drawer into her palm, and chucked the dish towel into her sink from her place by the front door. It really was a  _ very _ tiny flat, but at least it was dry and had pleasant, if disinterested, neighbors.

Then she opened the door - and froze.

The man on her doorstep was impossible.

“Peggy,” he said - and then simply looked at her as though she were the impossible one, fumbling for words that didn’t come. 

The world spun around her, and she clutched for the doorknob, struggling to stay upright. He took a half step forward, arm outstretched as if to help, but she brought up her gun and leveled it at him between the eyes.

_ “Who are you?”  _ The words came out in a hoarse whisper, squeezing around her heart, which seemed to be lodged in her throat. The sights on her pistol were wobbling dreadfully; she couldn’t keep it steady. Only a sheer effort of will kept her knees from buckling.

He looked at her -  _ looked _ at her, as though he could do nothing else, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist. 

“Hi,” he managed at last, and visibly swallowed hard. “I - I’m late.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! 
> 
> I started writing fanfiction solely as a way to give Steve and Peggy their happy ending. After Endgame, I walked out of the theater thinking that I could stop at last. The happy ending I wanted for them was finally canon. I was content. I was going to stop writing fanfics.
> 
> A few weeks later, and after messaging with several of you (you know who you are), I was encouraged to start a post-Endgame story. Personally, I’m a fan of the same-timeline theory, but the idea of meddling in an alternate timeline became too much to resist.
> 
> And so I give you this. Thanks to those of you who encouraged me to keep writing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

* * *

“Hi,” the man in the doorway said. “I - I’m late.”

The unladylike sound that exploded out of Peggy’s mouth was neither a laugh nor a sob. Possibly it was both. Her vision clouded, but she refused to let the tears fall, gritting her teeth until pain lanced through her jaw. This couldn’t be happening.

Lines in his face tightened at her obvious distress, but the intense expression in his eyes - was it gladness? - didn’t diminish. “Can I come in?” he asked carefully.

“Steve died,” she snapped, not budging an inch. The words were harsh, breathless, painful as they tore out of her. The gun in her hand was really wobbling now, but she didn’t dare let go of the doorknob to steady it with her other hand. “He died in the war. He died a hero, and I _heard him die_ , so whoever you are, don’t imagine you can fool me.”

“I would never.” He looked very earnest, as though he meant it. “Try me.”

Peggy’s mind went blank. Try as she might, her spinning brain couldn’t come up with any question concrete enough, foolproof enough to ask. He must have seen her dilemma; his voice was very gentle as he started speaking. 

“October ‘44. Four soldiers jumped you in the woods outside of Verdun. Buck and I were the only ones who saw you when you got back. He stood watch while I got you to your tent and fixed you up. You lost a glove in the fight, so later I went back and found it for you. I never told a soul, Peggy. Not even Bucky knew about the glove. Just you.”

A pause. Peggy’s heart hammered once - twice - hard against her ribs. Then she slowly lowered the gun. The way she was shaking, she’d probably shoot out the window of the house across the street if she tried to hit the man in her front doorway, even at point-blank range.

“Come in,” she told him hoarsely, and peeled her clenched hand from around the doorknob, backing toward the kitchen, never letting him out of her field of vision. She hit her hip hard on the edge of the kitchen table, but didn’t notice the pain. He followed slowly, pushing the door shut with one foot, keeping his hands in plain sight with that little furrow in his forehead he always got when he was trying very hard to do something right.

No - with the little furrow _Steve_ always got. This man wasn’t Steve, surely not. He couldn’t be. She couldn’t bear to think he might be.

Hope was too painful to even consider.

Peggy took her eyes off him for a split second, wrenching open a kitchen drawer to swap her gun for a knife. When she looked back at him, he was already rolling up one sleeve as though he knew what she was going to ask.

“Sit down,” she croaked.

He pulled out one of the two kitchen chairs with his foot, and sat, laying his bared arm out across the table, palm up. She slowly sat on the other chair across from him, still shaking. Any other man would lay his hand palm down to protect the major veins, or at least watch the knife to make sure she wasn’t about to pin his hand to the table with it, but his eyes never left hers, and the trust in them nearly undid her.

“Peggy,” he said, as though the very sound of her name was a prayer.

She swallowed hard and slid the blade down the outside of his forearm, leaving a long, shallow line that reddened with a thin rim of blood. It was possibly a bit deeper than she’d meant to make it, but the way she was trembling she was vaguely surprised she hadn’t taken his whole arm off by accident. He was trembling too, she noticed, and the look in his eyes was stronger than ever.

Now she recognized that expression. He was looking at her as though he loved her - as though he couldn’t get enough of the sight of her - as though he was terrified and hopeful and fearful all at once - and it was too much, far, far too much to take in at the moment. 

She tore her gaze away from his, heart jumping unevenly in her chest, and looked back at his arm. It had already scabbed over - and when, with an unsteady hand, she ran her thumb across his warm skin, the scab flaked away, leaving an already-fading pink line.

The knife dropped to the tabletop with a clatter.

“Hey,” he said - and she must have lost track of her surroundings for a moment, because all of the sudden he wasn’t sitting across the table from her; he was kneeling by her chair, his head on a level with hers, one careful hand hovering beside her shoulder as if to steady her. “Peggy, you okay? You need me to call somebody?”

“ _Steve_ ,” she breathed, and turned blindly into his arms.

* * *

The teakettle whistling brought them back to themselves. Steve stretched out an arm from where they sat on the floor and switched the hot plate off. He was crying too, Peggy realized - his face was all wet and his nose was red, and the awestruck wonder in his eyes when he looked at her simply took her breath away.

“You’re alive,” she quavered, finding coherent words for the first time since fairly falling into his arms. “You - you came back.”

He nodded, and wiped his hand across his eyes before wrapping his arm back around her, smiling tremulously. “Yeah. I had a date.”

Peggy hiccuped, and wished she could wipe her own eyes, but decided it was more important to keep her hands right where they were, clenched around fistfuls of his jacket. She used her grip to shake him slightly instead, her mixed emotions roiling. 

“Where have you been?” she demanded, exasperation winning out for the moment. “It’s been so long. Did Howard find you?”

The light in his eyes faded, then - and suddenly he looked more tired than she’d ever seen him, even than after some of the worst missions during the war. Looking up at him as she blinked away her tears, she realized for the first time that his face was older, more mature than that of the young man she’d known and fallen in love with.

Unclenching one of her fists, she raised a hand, fingers drifting lightly across his furrowed forehead, the new lines at the corners of his eyes. With a sigh, he turned his face into her palm, eyelids fluttering closed at her soft touch, his wet eyelashes grazing her skin. All his walls were down, and keen longing showed clear on his face. 

It was the most intimate moment they’d ever had together. 

She never wanted it to end. 

“It’s a long story,” he began, faltering a little as he finally dragged himself down to earth again. “I - I’m not sure you’ll believe me when you hear it.”

She considered, looking between his oh-so-subtly altered face and the damp spot on his shoulder where she’d cried on it earlier. Somehow she felt that whatever he had to tell her, it would change her life forever.

“Tell me,” she asked simply, and he did.

It took a long time.

Some time during the tale, they ended up on Peggy’s couch, one on either end, facing each other over the empty cushion in the middle. A cup of tea steamed in Peggy’s hands - she thought Steve must have made it for her; she certainly had no recollection of getting it herself - but it grew cold over the course of his story.

When he was done, neither one talked for a while. 

“All I’m hoping for is that dance, Peggy,” he finally broke the silence. “One dance. I know it’s been long enough that I can’t ask for more - but if you’d be willing - unless you - do you still dance?”

Even after all this time, he still was a fumbling idiot when it came to women. Peggy looked at him. His blue eyes were desperately earnest and visibly afraid of her answer. She swallowed hard around the lump of emotion in her throat.

Then she set down her stone-cold cup of tea on the floor and stood decisively. Crossing the room, she stood with her back to him, touching her hair, dabbing carefully at her eyes, fingers fluttering at her waistband to make sure her blouse was tucked in, that she was all in one piece and as presentable as she could get. Then she reached for the radio.

Her radio was not new. It screeched annoyingly, and the antenna had to be positioned just right in order for the music not to be swamped in pure static, but tonight the world seemed to be working in her favor. One of the stations was playing slow dance music. Still facing the radio, Peggy took a deep breath. Then she turned around and looked at Steve.

He was watching her, of course. He sat on the edge of the couch, his big hands fidgeting a little nervously, slow comprehension dawning on his face as he realized what she was doing.

Peggy reached out a hand and cleared her throat. “Are you coming?”

Steve made a jerky, aborted movement. In that moment, he looked more like the young, bashful private than she had seen him in years. “I - I was hoping to take you out someplace nice Saturday night.”

“No.” Peggy’s throat spasmed and her voice cracked, but she firmed up her mouth and fought to remain in control. “I refuse to take another rain check, Captain.”

To his credit, he didn’t protest. He got to his feet and approached her slowly, looking down at her with a mixture of earnest emotions tangled in his face. “Then, Agent Carter - will you show me how to dance?”

She taught him a slow foxtrot first, since that was what was on the air at the moment. Standing opposite him, his large hands careful on her waist and wrapped around her fingers, she led him in the step, step, side-together in time to the music. Something in the rhythm of it helped dispel a little of the tension that had built in the room during his unbelievable recital.

“How do you keep from running into things if you always go backwards?” Steve asked, following her meticulously, forehead furrowed.

Peggy‘s laugh was tremulous but genuine. All that time in the future, and he still didn’t know the first thing about dancing. “Oh, that’s your job.” She joggled his arms. “A lady trusts her partner to steer her away from anything behind her.”

Steve nodded soberly. “And what’s your job, then?” 

Pale, incredulous joy fluttered in Peggy’s chest. She tipped back her head to look her impossible partner in the eye, and raised a teasing brow. “My job is to make you look good, Captain.”

They danced for a very long time. The crackly little old radio played song after song as the two of them revolved around the tiny flat, treading the worn carpet, Steve carefully steering her around the little table and back. Peggy leaned close and felt his hand tighten gently at her back, drawing her still nearer, the reverent touch speaking his feelings more plainly than he’d managed in words. She laid her head on his chest; his cheek brushed her hair. The warmth and breadth of his shoulders and arms surrounded her, and for the first time in years, she felt herself enveloped in that sense of safety he had always seemed to carry with him.

Steve Rogers was more than a decade older than when she’d last seen him. He had more blood on his hands, more lives on his conscience, more pain in his heart. He was scarred and lonely and desperately tired, and she could see it all more clearly than he knew.

But at the core of him, he was still the same man, and Peggy knew that more certainly than she’d ever known anything in her life. 

At length, the radio played the Star Spangled Banner and signed off for the night, empty static hissing through the speakers. They still stood swaying in the middle of the floor, Steve’s arms around Peggy’s waist, her hands slipping up to his shoulders. He felt a hitch and a sigh in her breath, and looked down suddenly to discover she was crying. There were tears in his own eyes too; emotion clogged his throat.

“Thank you,” he whispered thickly, and folded her closer. Because whatever happened after this - whatever his future held, at least they’d had their dance, and he’d fulfilled his promise.

* * *

“I should go,” he said at last, reluctantly. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but the clock over the stove showed a time that was well past midnight, and he respected Peggy too much to put her reputation on the line. “Let you get your sleep.”

Even as his arms loosened, Peggy leaned closer. She looked up - and oh, her face was so temptingly near.

“Where will you go?” she demanded. “Are you going back to…”

“Back to the future?” Steve filled in, and then internally kicked himself at the sudden recollection of a movie night in the Avengers tower, back before things had soured inside the team. He shook himself free of the memory of Tony gleefully critiquing the time travel scientific gobbledygook - Tony, the man who had eventually invented an actual, working time travel - the man who was at once both heroically dead, and not yet born.

She was watching him with steady, liquid eyes, he noticed, and dragged himself out of his memories, not wanting to lose a moment of his time with her. “No, I just have to find a place to bunk for the night. I don’t need to go back to the future just yet.” 

“Don’t go back to the future tonight,” Peggy cut in, before he finished his sentence. Her fingers tightened around a handful of his shirt as if she could physically prevent him from going. “Not tonight.”

“I won’t,” he promised. He tried to memorize her - the touch of her hands on his shoulders, the way she fit inside the curve of his arm, the face he knew both young and old. Dimly, he realized he was losing himself in her eyes again. They were big and clear, filled with silent promises and hope and tears. A man could spend a lifetime looking into those eyes…

Steve’s stomach chose that moment to make itself heard, rumbling in a way that was clearly audible to them both. Steve flushed. Peggy laughed a little hysterically. She leaned back and looked him up and down - a quick flicker of her eyes. “When was the last time you ate?” 

He couldn’t remember. Something high-energy right before departing on this time trip - and then Thor’s mother had given him some kind of alien sandwich when he’d handed the Aether over to her, but he had no good way of putting that into hours. “Not sure.”

“At least let me fix you something.” She was grasping for straws to keep him from leaving, and they both knew it.

“Thank you,” he responded gravely.

She fumbled around the kitchenette, dropping a glass and the bread knife in the process; her hands were still unsteady. After the bread knife clattered to the floor, Steve stood and came over, catching a second glass neatly before it had time to become acquainted with the linoleum. He solemnly accepted the plate of burned toast and the glass of milk that she presented him, and made his way back to the couch.

Peggy sat on the other end and watched him as he ate. She accepted his offer of the least-burned piece of toast, and nibbled on it distractedly. Steve sipped at the milk and smiled encouragingly at her. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Peggy jumped, slightly embarrassed at being caught staring. “What did you do to your leg?”

It was his turn to be embarrassed. Thanos had done a number on his leg with that wickedly double-bladed weapon of his, and it was still healing, but he thought he’d hid the nagging limp rather well. His free hand moved unconsciously toward his knee before he realized it was a dead giveaway, since she hadn’t specified which leg she was asking about. “Just a little stiff. Not a big deal.” 

She arched an eyebrow. “In a pig’s eye,” she shot back Bucky’s old phrase, the thing he always said when Steve got himself hurt and tried to hide it. She even aimed for his flat Brooklyn twang. 

Steve snorted into his toast, spraying crumbs across his lap. 

And somehow, after Peggy’s laughter had died down into half-sobbing giggles, and Steve, red and sheepishly chuckling, had brushed the crumbs off his trousers, the ice was broken, and things didn’t feel so awkward anymore. 

* * *

When he was done with his food, Steve rose to leave. Peggy hated to see him go, suddenly terrified that the minute he walked out of her door he would vanish forever.

“Stay,” she proposed. “You could sleep…” she looked around, grasping for an idea. The couch had a bed folded into it - her bed - and once it was unfolded for the night there wasn’t enough floor space for even a small child to lie down, let alone Steve Rogers. Unless he wanted to fold himself into the sink, there was no place for him.

“There’s a flophouse a block down,” Steve assured her as he opened her front door and stood on the threshold. “I’ll bunk there for tonight.” He lingered, though, as if reluctant to go. 

“I…” Peggy had to admit that his plan was a sensible one. She came as close to him as she dared, looking up into his face. At this range, she could feel when his breath caught at her proximity. “Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow. We could get breakfast somewhere.” He cleared his throat - his ears were growing red. “Peggy…”

Whatever he was going to say, he never finished it, because that was when she rose on her toes and kissed his cheek.

When she drew back, his eyes were wide as saucers, and somehow his hands had settled on her waist. He didn’t let go, lightly holding her close to him, his face only an inch from hers.

“I missed you,” he breathed helplessly, barely a sound in the stillness. 

She flung caution to the wind and lost herself in his eyes, because how often did one get a second chance like this one? “I missed you too - so much.”

His whole body swayed, his nose almost brushing hers, his eyes flickering across her face as one large hand tightened imperceptibly at her spine, drawing her nearer…

And then, reluctantly, he pulled back.

“I—“ he managed. 

She barely had time to be disappointed before a very familiar expression solidified on his face - the look she’d seen when the skinny recruit had first faced off against a larger opponent, the expression that he got before storming that last Hydra base - the look that meant Steve Rogers was going to do something incredibly, desperately reckless.

And then he closed the distance between them, cupped her face in one careful hand, and found her lips with his.

It was a gentle kiss - unpracticed, but filled with hope and longing and an emotion so deep that her very bones ached and thrilled with it. It was the answer to her own kiss from so long ago - a kiss he’d waited more than a decade to give her. 

Much later, she would realize that they’d been standing in the open doorway where any neighbor might have looked in and seen them. She would realize that her makeup was smudged, discover that her hairpins had been slipping out on one side.

But right then, in that instant, it was just the two of them sharing a single perfect moment that had been so long delayed, so deeply impossible that they had only ever dreamed it in hopeless dreams. And in that moment, she knew to the depths of her soul just how much he loved her.

When he drew back, he looked somewhere between radiant and completely shocked that she’d let him kiss her. For her part, she felt like her body had been filled with sunlight; every nerve quivered from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

“Um,” he said eloquently. He floundered for a moment, and then settled on “Goodnight?”

“Goodnight,” she whispered back, too stunned to do more than echo the farewell back at him.

He devoured her face in one more comprehensive glance, touched her cheek briefly with an unsteady hand - and then vanished down the stairwell.

Mechanically, Peggy returned inside her flat, and locked the door. For a moment she stared at it, a hand pressed to her tingling lips. She could still feel the ghost of his hands on her back, on her face.

Then she turned and fled across her flat, scrambling around the table and clambering on the couch to get to the window. She was just in time to see him emerge from the street door, three floors below. He must have been as dazed as she felt - she watched him walk into a street lamp, address it absently in what was probably an apology, and then continue down the street toward the flophouse he’d mentioned. Even from the window she could see the lightness in his step. 

And when he was out of sight, fully and completely, Peggy put her head down on the windowsill and found expression for all her mingled grief and joy and thankfulness and shock by crying her heart out.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, this was a delight to do. I’ve wanted to post this for ages!
> 
> Fun fact: the memory Steve reminds her of is a callback to the oldest standalone Steve/Peggy short I’ve done, written all the way back in October 2015, a month after I started posting Sarcophagus. I’ve never posted it, but let me know if it’s of interest and I might change my mind. :)
> 
> Thank you all for your kind reception to this story. You’re the best ever, and I appreciate you all so very much. Have a great day!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: This chapter was updated 4/26/2020, and the chapter ending dramatically changed. If you read this chapter before that date, you will want to re-read it before continuing to chapter four.

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Fingers of early morning light crept through the narrow window and slipped across Peggy’s pillow as the dawn broke. She was already awake; had been awake for hours, staring up at the ceiling, reliving the night before and wondering if it had all been some sort of dream.

Steve Rogers was alive. He had come to her - had danced with her - had left her with a kiss that still burned on her lips and made her heart stutter in her chest. Surely, surely it had all been a wild, insane, beautiful dream. It certainly wasn’t the first time she’d dreamed of his return. 

She doubted it would be the last.

There seemed no purpose to remain in bed any longer. Rolling out of the creaking hideabed, Peggy made it up mechanically, folding it away and rearranging the sofa cushions without paying the least attention to them. She dressed in her favorite tweed skirt and jacket, applied her brightest shade of lipstick, and took a deep breath as she adjusted her hat with fingers that trembled. Her white-faced reflection stared back at her from the small mirror by her door. Ducking her head, she looked away. She didn’t want to recognize the painful hope burning in her reflected eyes.

Then, without allowing herself delay, she opened the door, stepped out with a firm tread, and descended the stairs of her apartment building.

And there he was.

Steve Rogers stood on the sidewalk, his back against the brownstone of the building, evidently waiting for her. He looked up and saw her at almost the same instant she caught sight of him, and for a moment the whole world reeled. Peggy closed her hand tightly around the narrow iron balustrade beside the steps, uncertain whether her knees would hold her. 

She’d very nearly convinced herself that the night before had been a hallucination. Only the dark bruise on her hip from walking into the table the night before had given her any sort of proof that perhaps she hadn’t dreamed the whole thing. But now he stood before her - tall, solid in the light of early morning, somehow even more real than the man in whose arms she had danced and wept only a few hours earlier. 

“Hello, Steve,” she said softly.

“Hi,” he answered, his voice equally low. He was looking at her the same way he’d looked at her the night before - the way he’d looked at her during a few unguarded moments during the war. 

It still made her heart turn over in her chest.

They might have gone on looking at each other forever, lost in each other’s eyes, if it weren’t for a newsboy who dashed between them, his heavy bag knocking against Steve’s knees and breaking the moment. Steve blinked, and seemed to realize he was staring at her. “Hi,” he said again, sounding rather breathless. He stared a minute longer, forehead furrowed, drinking in the sight of her, and then grinned and gestured. “Breakfast?”

Neither one had managed much sleep. They walked down the street side by side, Peggy’s fingertips pressing into the rough fabric of his jacket as she took his arm; the hem of her skirt just brushing his leg.

It all felt completely surreal.

As luck would have it, Angie was working the breakfast shift at the diner when they arrived. She waggled her eyebrows and eyed Steve with significant interest as she brought Peggy’s usual, followed by Steve’s triple order of eggs, hash browns, and sausage.

“Anybody tell ya you look an awful lot like Captain America?” she asked Steve, setting his plates in front of him. Peggy stiffened, but Steve simply smiled.

“Sure,” he said. “Sometimes. But my folks came from Ireland. I don’t think I have any relatives in the US.”

Angie eyed him up and down again, but seemed to let the issue go. “I know how that is,” she agreed, nodding. “My second cousin’s wife looks exactly like Hedy Lamar. I keep telling her she could make a fortune in Hollywood.”

Somebody called her away then, and Steve and Peggy were left alone with their breakfast. Peggy had the sudden hysterical feeling that they probably looked like a perfectly normal couple facing one another over their bacon and eggs, rather than two people severed by time and space and unexpectedly reunited.

“Smooth,” she commented rather shakily before the silence between them became awkward, and reached for the sugar. “Where did you learn that line?”

“Nat,” Steve responded, then recollected himself visibly. “Natasha Romanoff, an agent I work with.” He paused, pain in his eyes. “Used to work with. She never did give up trying to give me tips for going undercover.”

Oh, yes - Natasha. Steve’s friend - the woman he’d mentioned the night before who had laid down her life for her friends. Peggy wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about the woman, but she couldn’t do anything other than respect that kind of dedication. 

After all, it wasn’t unlike what Steve himself had done.

“Do I ever meet her?” she asked, and saw a thoughtful guardedness leap up in Steve’s face.

“Maybe?” he responded, stabbing at the hash browns with his fork. “She didn’t tell me much about her past.”

“And you’re not going to tell me much about my future.” It wasn’t a question. Peggy just knew it, the same way she knew that Steve was Steve. Sure enough, he shook his head, jaw squared.

“I know some things,” he admitted slowly. “But I run the risk of creating a new timeline just by being here. Anything I tell you is liable to change, and a little misinformation can be dangerous.”

Peggy nodded, musing. Even if his return did change the timeline, she couldn’t bring herself to feel much of a loss over a changed future she might never have - not when the man she had mourned so deeply and for so long was sitting across from her, even if only for a short time. 

“Was I happy?” she asked at last. “In that life, I mean.”

Steve took his time chewing a mouthful of breakfast. When he could speak again, he nodded, slowly.

“You had a good life,” he told her quietly, and that was enough. It was all she wanted to know. 

Unlike the night before, their conversation over breakfast mostly centered around Peggy. Steve kept steering the conversation back to her life - the end of the war, her time in the New York SSR office, the trip to California.

“What about fellas?” he asked, and then floundered as though he hadn’t meant to ask in quite that way.

Peggy laid down her spoon, folded her hands, and raised an eyebrow with a cool air that belied the suddenly increased tempo of her heartbeat. “What exactly are you implying, Captain?”

He fidgeted with his fork, dropped it, and only just managed to slap a hand onto it before it skittered off the edge of the table. “I mean,” he said more carefully, “that it’s been years. You’re a smart, beautiful woman,” the simplicity with which he uttered that sentiment very nearly took her breath away, “and I know I’m not the only guy with eyes.” He looked down at the fork in his hand, and then back up at her. “You seeing anyone?”

Peggy arched her other eyebrow to match the first. “I hope you don’t think I go around kissing people when I’m otherwise committed,” she retorted, but there was no real bite in her words.

“No, ma’am,” Steve was quick to say. “But as I recall, _I_ was the one who kissed you. Should’ve asked first.”

The memory of last night’s kiss was too much to dwell on. Peggy’s breath snagged in her throat; she ducked her head momentarily to avoid meeting his eyes across the table. 

“I’ve gone out with a few people,” she said at last. “After all, I thought you were dead.”

There was no blame in Steve’s eyes when she looked up at him - only understanding and an old, deep sorrow. This man was certainly far older than the Steve Rogers who had naively made assumptions about her and Stark so long ago.

“I know,” he said. “I was - or as good as, anyway. Found anybody special?”

Peggy tugged at the edge of her napkin. “I thought I had,” she said simply. “He was a good man. You’d like him. But it turned out I wasn’t as in love with him as I thought.” Then, feeling this conversation was growing entirely too one-sided, she turned the table. “And what about you?” she demanded. “It’s been more than twice as long for you. Surely you’ve found someone.”

Steve crumbled the crust of his toast between his fingers. “Went out on some dates,” he said, voice low. He paused, then offered her a crooked smile. “Turns out it’s a little hard to find somebody in a world where everyone knows you only as Captain America.”

"But certainly not impossible?" She was sure there were exceptions, but at the moment Peggy couldn't think of a single reason why any woman wouldn't be attracted to him. He'd constantly been dodging them back during the war - secretaries, WACs, star-struck women of every nationality. British to the core, Peggy barricaded herself behind her teacup. "I imagine there were plenty of women who would have been delighted to get to know you as Steve Rogers."

He looked her straight in the eye. "Probably," he admitted. "And for a while there was one I thought maybe things could work out with - but it didn't end up going anywhere." He shrugged, looking slightly sheepish. "Turns out she was related to you."

Peggy set her teacup down so suddenly that the liquid inside sloshed over into the saucer. "Surely not my granddaughter?" she demanded, horrified. Steve shook his head hastily.

"No, not a direct descendent." His toast was now a little pile of crumbs; he absently pushed them together with his fork as Peggy's heartbeat slowly returned to its normal speed. "I gave up trying after that. Haven't gone out with a girl in five years." He shook his head at her unspoken query. "Just didn't seem worth the trouble, and wasn't fair to them."

There was direct honesty in his face - honesty and weariness, and a spark of something that made Peggy's heart promptly speed back up again. He was telling her the truth.

"Why?" she persisted, even though it was probably a bad idea. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Why wasn't it fair to them?"

Steve's fork hit the edge of his plate with a clatter as he let it fall to the tabletop. He didn't move to pick it up, his attention wholly focused on her. "Because I realized I was measuring them all against you."

There could be no response to such an answer. It felt as though he had just laid his heart among the breakfast things on the table between them, and after all this time she wasn't sure she knew what to do with it.

So she just stared wordlessly at him - at the lines of his face, so familiar, yet so changed - at the way his shoulders hunched ever so slightly inward - at the blue of his eyes, all at once anxious and hopeful, but with that spark of something she was afraid to put a name to. She remembered now exactly why Steve had dodged all those women during the war. It had been a long time before she'd realized that he had eyes only for her, and even longer before she'd allowed herself to fully believe it.

If the way he'd kissed her last night was any indication, his feelings for her hadn't changed.

"Steve," she breathed, and then paused, searching for words. Something warm and ephemeral was rising in her chest - happiness, she realized vaguely. He leaned closer, looking at her like he had the night before, just after he'd kissed her.

“Need a refill?” Angie chirped over their heads.

Peggy jumped so violently that she nearly upset her plate. Steve started as well, the abrupt movement knocking his fork off the edge of the table. He groaned and disappeared after it, groping under the seat.

“No, thank you Angie,” Peggy managed. Her friend’s expression was very bright and very interested, and at that moment Peggy devoutly wished her at the other end of the earth.

“Sure?” Angie leaned over and refilled Steve’s cup anyway, giving him an appraising once-over as he emerged from under the table, fork in hand. “Can I getcha anything else?”

_A little privacy_ , Peggy wanted to say, but restrained herself, fixing her attention on her plate instead, only half-listening as Steve fumbled his way through Angie’s flow of conversation. 

Only when Angie was called away by another customer did they both relax, staring across the table at one another. The friendly waitress had broken the moment, and Peggy suddenly found herself very depressed. 

“I’m afraid I’m not quite the same woman you knew,” she said, rather bitterly. She knew Steve had changed, and it didn’t seem to make a bit of difference to how her traitorous heart felt about him, but she had changed as well. Perhaps if he knew the woman she’d turned out to be, he wouldn’t still be looking at her that same way anymore.

His smile was a little sad, but the way he was looking at her didn’t change. “And I’m not quite the same guy,” he said. “It’s been a long time for both of us, and I don’t - I don’t expect anything from you. Fill me in on what else I’ve missed?”

So she did, plunging back into the story of her return to New York, and her temporary position as head of the SSR office. It was somehow a relief to take refuge in the narrative. Steve Rogers always had been a good listener.

“But you probably know all this,” she interrupted herself in the middle of her recital. “Surely I must have told you at some point.”

Steve shrugged. She narrowed her gaze, trying to break him, but he just leaned back, a ghost of a grin on his lips that exasperated her even as she was reminded of old days. He had never been this good at keeping secrets. This man had clearly been trained during their time apart. 

Between them, they dragged out the meal as long as they could, picking at their food, eating as slowly as humanly possible. Every so often, when Peggy glanced discreetly in his direction, she would find him doing the same, his warm blue eyes fixed on her. He never looked away in those moments, his gaze lost in her own until some clatter from the kitchen broke through.

She wondered if he would have to leave after this - if this would be her last chance to be with him. The thought made her heart ache unbearably. She’d survived his loss once, and she knew she could do it again, but the prospect was far from pleasant. 

Only after every single crumb of his toast was gone, did Steve reluctantly excuse himself. "I could talk to you all day, but you'll be late for work."

" _Hang_ work," Peggy retorted with sudden and unusual vehemence - a sentiment which she had never expressed in her life. Heads at nearby tables turned in surprise at her raised voice, but she didn't care. "I don't want to lose you again, not just yet."

Something tender sprang into Steve's face; something so raw and hopeful that Peggy felt as though she'd violated his privacy simply by seeing it. He laid his hand over her own in a gentle move that made her skin prickle and a sudden lump grow in her throat. "I won't leave," he promised. "But you got your work to do, and I know how important it is."

"Not as important as you." Peggy felt her face hardening into the expression her brother had once called 'pugnacious.' "Once, Steve Rogers, you promised to show me around New York. I intend to call in that promise."

He looked unmistakably delighted, eyes filling with warm pleasure. "You sure they'll let you off?" he asked, his fingers closing more firmly around hers - and right then Peggy knew that nothing else mattered. She couldn't bear to ask Steve how much time he had left before he had to leave, but she also couldn't stomach the thought of missing a minute of whatever time she could spend with him.

So she raised her eyebrows. "As it happens," she archly informed him, "I've had a personal emergency that will necessitate my leaving the office for the day."

He grinned suddenly - a boyish expression that she hadn't seen in far too long. "You probably know New York better than I do at this point," he pointed out.

Peggy reached for her handbag and rather reluctantly withdrew her hand from his. "Not your New York," she retorted. "Half a moment while I phone in." She started to rise, and then paused. "Promise me you won't go while my back's turned."

He looked her straight in the eye and nodded. "I promise."

The phone in the diner was in a little closet back behind the counter, but Angie let her slip back to use it without complaint. She hovered as close as she could, listening shamelessly while Peggy informed the agent on the other end of the wire that a family emergency had arisen, and she'd be unable to come in to work that day.

It wasn't easy to explain that she wouldn't be coming in. Her position as acting chief was a tenuous one, and one she hoped would become permanent. Calling in late like this wouldn't do her standing any favors though.

When Peggy finally put the receiver back on the hook, she felt jittery and nervous from head to toe. In just a few hours her whole life had been turned on its head. She wondered if she went back into the dining area, whether Steve would have disappeared after all, a phantom of her own memory.

"He's some dish, English."

Peggy started at her friend's voice, and spun around to find Angie surveying her intently, head cocked, both hands on her hips. A dish towel dangled from her fingers, nearly touching the ground, and a teasing grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. Somewhat thrown off by the intensity of her friend's regard, Peggy attempted to pull herself together.

"He's an old friend," she admitted. Somehow Steve was seeming less and less real now that he was out of her sight. Her breath felt unsteady.

Angie eyed her. "Right," she said slowly, not bothering to hide her disbelief. "Tell me that again when you don't look like you've seen a ghost."

Well then. Peggy bit her lip and busied herself with her purse so she could hide her face for a moment. "You're sure he isn't a ghost, Angie?"

Angie snorted. "Ghosts don't clean up three orders of bacon, hash browns and eggs, and still look hungry when they're done." She hesitated. "You okay, Peggy? Need a Pepto or something?"

Angie's practicality was exactly what she needed. Peggy took a deep breath, and laughed a little as she looked up at her friend.

"Thank you, Angie," she said. "I'm all right."

And for the first time in longer than she cared to remember, Peggy realized it might actually be true.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, folks! The world has turned upside down, but I’m still here and so are you! Thought I’d do my part to help make your lives more interesting and give you something to read. :) I know life is crazy right now, and I hope you all are doing okay. I am working from home and keeping busy. I don’t see many people though, so feel free to drop a line and say hi! Stay well, and stay safe. You all are important to me.
> 
> This chapter was a beast. I’ve rewritten nearly the entire thing more than once, and if I don’t post it now, then I never will. Thanks for your patience and support!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

" _What do you mean, you're not sure where Brooklyn begins and ends?" Steve demanded, surprise coloring his voice. "I thought you were based out of New York City."_

_Agent Carter shrugged, scraping her spoon along the inside edge of her tin plate to get the last bit of food. They'd been marching all day, and her legs felt like they were about to fall off. Even this far from the front lines, the dull boom of exploding bombs punctuated what otherwise would have been a pleasant evening. "I spent some time in the New York sewers in '42," she specified, "but I'm afraid I never had the luxury of exploring much aboveground."_

_Steve cocked an intrigued eyebrow and shoved his own plate and spoon back into his pack. Even though he was on double rations, she could tell he was still hungry. "Too bad you didn't get the chance to stay a little longer."_

" _I did get to see some of the sights." Peggy paused, thinking back. "Doctor Erskine and I took in the view from the Empire State Building, and we walked to the shore and saw your Statue of Liberty." She didn't mention the tears that had risen in Doctor Erskine's eyes as he looked across the water and saw the symbol of everything he and his countrymen were being denied._

" _That's a good start," Steve said thoughtfully. "But it's just the surface, it's the part everybody sees. The people who build the buildings, who live by what that statue represents—_ that's _what New York is all about. Until you've seen them, you haven't seen nothing yet."_

_Peggy felt her smile widening at his clearly-growing enthusiasm. She loved it when she could get him talking about his home. Most people never saw this side of Captain America._

" _Then you'll have to show me," she heard herself saying, as she tucked her mess kit back into her own pack. "After all of this is over."_

_His face was softer, his eyes bright with something unspoken that made her heart skip a beat when she looked back up at him. "I will," he promised after a moment. "You come to New York, and I'll show it to you like you've never seen it before."_

_Peggy's heart felt warm; she bit her lip to keep from smiling back at him. "I'll hold you to it, soldier."_

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

He'd never thought he would get to do this.

Sure, he'd dreamed of it often enough during the war, planning out what he'd show her, where he'd take her. On nights when he couldn't sleep, he would stare up into the darkness and imagine taking her along the Coney Island boardwalk, showing her the street he grew up on as a kid, treating her to ice cream at the little place on the corner where he and Bucky used to press their noses against the glass and look in.

Then he'd woken up in the future, and everything had changed. The world was new. He'd felt like a tourist in his own land.

And now, against all odds, he was back—and yet somehow, he still felt out of place.

They lingered first in Manhattan, while he tried to point things out to her. It was harder than he'd expected. The tall steel and glass skyscrapers of a distant future stood out more clearly in his memory than the older buildings he'd known in his youth. After the third or fourth time where something wasn't where he'd expected it to be, Peggy finally stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled a pad of paper and a pencil out of her purse.

"Show me," she said simply, and handed them to him.

So he did, his pencil flying across the paper as he sketched buildings that wouldn't be built for decades yet. Peggy's eyebrows lifted as she compared the scribbled skyline to the world around her, but all she said was, "that one's a terrible eyesore" as she tapped Stark Tower with her thumbnail.

"I thought the same when I first saw it," Steve agreed, and only the pain in his heart caused by Tony's recent death kept him from laughing at the fact that neither he nor Peggy cared much for the artistically asymmetrical building.

Things had changed too much, he realized. There was no way that she could see either his future or his past, other than through his pencil and his clumsy words. She could never truly know the world he had lived in.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, and he realized he'd been standing frozen, pencil forgotten between his fingers.

"I don't know how to show you around," he confessed. He felt somehow ashamed, very tired, wholly lost. Was he always to feel out of place, regardless of which time he was in? "It's too big. It's too—different."

She settled her hand on his arm, her palm small and warm, her red nails gleaming against the drab of his jacket. "Then don't try," she urged. "Anyway, you always said it was about the people, not about the places."

And even as she said it, he realized it was true. The spirit of the people—that had remained the same, whether in the past, present, or future.

Her hand tightened comfortingly around his arm in a brief squeeze. "Tell me about the people, Steve."

He closed his hand around the pencil, and looked down into her face. She was his anchor, regardless of which time he stood in—the true north to his heart's compass. Reoriented, he nodded slowly.

"Okay," he said. "I can do that."

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

They got lunch at a small hole-in-the-wall diner, and then rode the subway out to Brooklyn. The train was hot and crowded; they had to stand close together. Even though he didn't care for the heat and noise of the subway system, Steve was almost sorry when they reached their destination and had to get off.

The station was busy, filled with bustling people. As they stepped off, a wedge of passengers shoved past, pressing forward to get on the same car he'd just stepped off of. Distracted, Steve stepped out of their way, before turning back to say something to Peggy.

Then he stopped short, the light remark dying unspoken on his lips.

Peggy wasn't there.

Steve's heart lurched inexplicably, a sick feeling swelling up inside him. He turned, urgently scanning the faces near him, searching for the one face that meant more to him than any other.

It was ridiculous—it really was, but terror knows no reason. For an instant this whole wild reality seemed no more than that one vision Wanda had thrust upon him years ago. In that dream, he'd had Peggy back for a few feverish moments before losing her between one heartbeat and the next. One instant she'd been there in his arms, and the next she'd been gone.

This, here and now, in the bustling subway station, felt exactly the same.

And then, just as the cold fingers of sickening despair clutched at his heart, he found her. Peggy was barely more than a yard or two away from him, only momentarily separated by the rush of boarding passengers. Her face was turned away from him as she too searched the crowd around her.

"Peggy," he rasped, voice hoarse with sudden feeling. She visibly caught her breath, whirling, reaching for him, her face washed with relief. Their hands met, Peggy's closing around his with a desperation that matched his own, her nails pressing crescent dents into his skin.

The whole thing hadn't lasted longer than a few seconds. They had only briefly been separated from one another in the mad bustle; most couples would barely have noticed it.

But they weren't most couples.

Wordlessly, they hurried up the stairs, out of the echoing clamor of the subway station and into the brightness of day. Peggy murmured something commonplace about how crowded the station had been; Steve nodded companionably and uncomprehendingly. His heart still beat a mad tattoo inside his rib cage; from the pounding pulse in her slim wrist, he suspected she felt the same.

He might be back, she might be young and alive—but both were such unexpected miracles that neither could quite trust that this whole reality wouldn't collapse on them both.

They'd walked a block before Steve discovered he was still holding her hand. He loosened his grip immediately, but instead of drawing away, she merely adjusted her hand more comfortably in his. It fit there exactly as he'd remembered; his heart leaped at the contact and, distracted, he nearly walked into a light pole.

It wasn't the first time they'd held hands—they'd done so often near the end of the war—but he still felt as awkward as a boy. When he glanced down at her, she looked as demure and self-possessed as ever, but he thought her cheeks were flushed from more than the heat of the subway, the dimple in her cheek a trifle deeper than usual.

Something in his soul ached at the sight.

Peggy hadn't asked him how long he'd be here for, which was just as well, since he hadn't decided what to tell her. If she knew he was here for good, his last vial of Pym Particles used up to get here, then she might feel pressured or trapped into a course of action by the enormity of his choice to return.

And that was the last thing he wanted. Peggy Carter deserved to make her own decisions—and if that decision was to say goodbye at the end of their time together, then it was her prerogative.

Even if it broke his heart, she needed the right to choose.

"You're looking somber." Peggy's voice pierced his thoughts. Shaking himself awake, he looked down at her. She was smiling, head cocked in interrogation. Steve found himself smiling back.

"Glad to be here," he told her honestly, and recklessly lost himself in the steady brown of her eyes.

Because regardless of what the future held, they were here together, today—and he wasn't about to waste a second of that time.

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When at last, they turned a particular corner, the resulting wave of nostalgia surprised Steve with its strength, hitting so hard that for a moment he could barely breathe. Briefly, he felt like the young man who had left this place so long ago and never come back.

It had been so many years. Back in the future, he'd gathered up the courage to return, only to find the entire area razed and reconstructed. During some initiative to clean up the city, the place he'd spent his youth had been swept up and discarded. At the time, it had been just one more blow in a series of devastating losses. Now he was back, and for a moment he couldn't tell which felt more like a dream—the future or the impossible present.

Peggy's fingers moved in his, and he looked down to find her watching him steadily, her eyes bright beneath the brim of her hat.

"All right?" she inquired briefly.

He nodded, and cleared his throat, which felt unaccountably thick.

"Yeah," he said, and smiled down at her. "Yeah. Here, let me show you."

And together they proceeded down the street, while Steve described for her the people who had shaped his youth in this place.

There was the barbershop, owned in Steve's youth by Mr. Mazur, and now apparently run by his son. Across the way stood the bakery, where Steve and Bucky had often peered in hungrily, though their mothers made their own bread and never shopped there. The small window on the top floor of that other building marked where old Mrs. Waikowsky had lived—the woman who had put all five of her daughters through stenographer school, and raised three of her grandsons.

"Always kept peppermints in her pocket." Steve remembered, grinning suddenly. "Used to rap us kids on the back of the head at church if she thought we weren't bowing our heads far enough."

Peggy snorted rather indelicately at the mental image.

Near the end of the narrow street, Steve directed Peggy into a sun-baked courtyard without a trace of greenery. Clotheslines criss-crossed above their heads, drying garments flapping in the breeze. It was a tenement housing block, one of many crowded into Brooklyn.

Steve stopped, his hand tightening around Peggy's at the rush of memories that swept over him. Glancing down at her, he could see that she understood even before he spoke. He tried to explain anyway.

"Second floor," he said, and pointed with his free hand. "Fourth door down. That's where my mother and I lived until she died."

The place seemed even smaller than it had when he'd been a child. Back then, this had been his whole world. His feet still remembered the climb up the stairs; raising his eyes, he could almost swear he saw the slim shape of his mother at the narrow window.

Time was so fluid.

At his side, Peggy looked up at him—a keen, probing look that saw more than he'd intended to show. "Tell me about her," she urged, so he did. The sun beat down on their heads as Steve spoke of his beloved mother in quiet halting sentences, briefly sketching the life of a young woman who loved her son more than anything else.

"I'm older now than she was when she died," Steve finished at last. Somehow he missed her more in this instant than he had in years. He'd barely spoken of his mother since her death, so long ago. There had been nobody to tell, other than Bucky, and he had already known it all. "I only wish she could have had more time."

Peggy squeezed his hand. Her voice was soft, infinitely tender. "She'd be very proud of the man you have become."

He looked down into her face, glowing with the heat of the courtyard and the faith burning in her eyes, and wondered if that might be true. He hoped it was. There was so much blood on his hands, so many mistakes in his past, but he'd tried hard to be a good man regardless.

When they finally left the courtyard, hand in hand, Steve didn't look back.

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In the end, he did take Peggy to the ice cream place on the corner after all. He and Bucky had once come here on double dates, though by that point in the evening Steve had usually lost his date, lingering on as an awkward third wheel.

This time, though, he was with Peggy. They found a table for two beside the large plate glass window, and shared a twenty-five cent sundae.

"If you grew up here, surely somebody will recognize you?" Peggy pointed out, licking melting ice cream and chocolate sauce from the end of her spoon. She didn't miss the way Steve's eyes dropped to her lips, nor the way he resolutely hauled them back up to meet her own. The man was a gentleman, but it was nice to know that he was human as well. She wondered if he thought about last night's brief, tender kiss as frequently as she had.

"I think most of them have moved out," he answered her, his spoon clinking against the glass of the dish as he took a bite of his own. "But I'm pretty sure the girl at the counter is Rudy O'Donnell's kid sister. She wouldn't recognize me, but her brother was my age." Steve leaned back in his seat, a reminiscent grin tugging at his lips as he pushed the rest of the sundae towards her. "He and Bucky had a long standing feud. Used to lick me every chance he got."

Peggy looked past him at the girl behind the counter. She was pretty, red headed, and the last name written on her name tag clearly betrayed her Irish heritage.

"Did Bucky grow up around here?" she asked.

Steve nodded, gesturing with one finger as he tried to point out the building through the window. "Just down the street. We'll pass it on our way back to the subway station."

Peggy settled her elbows on the table and savored the last bite of ice cream, looking around the world Steve had brought her to. This wasn't the New York most tourists saw. It wasn't even the New York she had come to know, the underworld riddled with crime, deceit, and intrigue. This was Steve's New York, filled with ordinary people living ordinary lives, and there was beauty in it.

"Thank you," she said. "For showing me your world."

His eyes lifted to hers, and then caught and held. For a long moment, there seemed to be nobody else in the world except for the two of them. On the tabletop, Steve's hand shifted slightly, his fingertips grazing hers. He drew in his breath as though he was about to speak.

Then the bell over the door jingled merrily, and the sudden sound jerked them both back to the present. A crowd of young people were just coming in, laughing and chatting. They were working girls and boys, Peggy noticed. The work day had come to an end, and the sun was slanting between the buildings at an increasing angle.

Steve looked at the empty dish between them, and smiled ruefully. "Guess we should head out."

As they left, his hand found hers again. Peggy didn't mind in the least.

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They passed the Barnes home on their way out of the neighborhood. Peggy knew it even before Steve pointed it out, because the pretty, dark-haired young women bounding up the steps of the apartment building could only be Sergeant Barnes' sister. Steve stopped short when he saw her, stepping into the shadow of the nearest building and averting his face until the girl was safely inside.

"Afraid she'll recognize you?" Peggy asked.

Steve's face was full of startled wonder, as though a thunderclap had burst around his head. She had to repeat her question twice before he heard her.

"Must be Rebecca," he managed at last. "She's so—young." The last time he'd seen her, she'd been in her late nineties. Bucky had finally been mentally healthy enough to meet her, and Steve had gone along. He hadn't seen her since; she'd been among those vaporized in the Snap.

Peggy laid her hand on his arm. The Barnes family was like his own, she knew. They had been entered on his service record as next-of-kin; Mrs. Barnes had written both him and Bucky during the war. "Would you like to go say hello?"

He shook his head, and his face briefly tightened into an expression she'd seen once before on a rainy day in the middle of Italy. Only for an instant, though—and then something behind his eyes shuttered. Peggy already knew that look. There was something from the future that he wasn't telling her.

"Not yet," he said very low, something achingly raw in his voice. "I can't face them yet."

He didn't say anything else on the matter, and she didn't press him as they walked on in silence. When he turned to her with a smile and spoke again, a block later, the conversation was on other matters.

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The sun was low in the sky as they turned their footsteps back towards Peggy's small apartment. Steve knew her feet were hurting her, after walking for the entire day, but Peggy insisted they walk across the Brooklyn Bridge instead of taking the subway home.

"I want to walk across the bridge with you" she'd demanded, looking up at him with a face he could deny nothing to, and he'd agreed as a matter of course. They took their time, walking slowly.

Steve wondered if she could tell how happy he was. Whatever happened after this, whatever decisions she made about her future and therefore his, at least they'd had today, and it had been wonderful beyond his wildest dreams.

The setting sun painted the sky and water in wild colors as they neared the middle of the bridge. The breeze from off the river picked up, blowing tendrils of Peggy's hair around her face. Steve realized he was staring at her again, but didn't bother even trying to stop. She was alive and here, by his side. Stronger than when he'd left her, perhaps more jaded, certainly more weary—but always so deeply beloved to him.

At the middle of the bridge, Peggy stopped and leaned against the rail. He took his cue from her, standing quietly at her side. She looked out at the water, her profile clear-cut against the darker shore. He traced her features with his eyes, memorizing every strand of loosened hair, the line of her throat, the determined press of her lips.

"I let you go, here," she said suddenly, her voice so soft that he nearly missed it. "I said goodbye, and I let you go."

Her hand was on the railing. Steve carefully covered it with his, and the touch seemed to jerk her into the present. She sucked in a sharp breath, and then looked up at him with eyes so vulnerable that it was all he could do not to kiss her then and there.

"Tell me about it," he suggested instead.

Peggy shrugged wearily. "Howard had one vial left of your—of your blood. It fell into my hands, and I—I just wanted to keep you safe." She looked back out at the water. There were tears in her eyes, her voice unsteady. "So I came here, and I poured it into the river because it was the only thing I could think of, and I said goodbye."

Her voice broke on the last word, and it stabbed at Steve's heart. Holding hands wasn't enough. He moved closer to her and put his arm carefully around her shoulders. She froze for an instant, before relaxing into his side with a shuddering sigh.

Steve knew better than anyone how much security his files had always been kept under. She must have had to go through quite the ordeal to get her hands on that last vial of his blood. The thought of Peggy Carter straining every nerve to keep him safe before finally letting him go brought a lump into his throat. He bowed his head until his cheek just brushed her hair.

"Thank you," he said quietly, "for keeping me safe."

She gave a sudden sob, swiped at her face impatiently, and then turned into his chest as he brought his other arm around her and folded her close.

For a long time they stood together, holding one another as the sunset slowly faded from the sky. The clouds and water were quite gray when she eventually straightened, pulling back out of his arms and groping for her handkerchief. He turned his eyes away, looking out across the water, giving her time to collect herself.

"You're not going back tonight?" she demanded presently. When he looked back at her, she was composed again, though her nose was a trifle more red than before. Nothing could disguise the anxiety in her eyes, though, as she awaited his answer to her question.

"No," he promised, still searching her face. She was the strongest, most beautiful woman he'd ever known, and the temptation to lay his heart right at her feet then and there was almost overwhelming. "Will you…" _marry me_ , he wanted to say, but didn't. It wouldn't be fair to her. "...would—would you let me take you out dancing sometime? Someplace nice this time, like I promised?"

He saw the light leap up in her eyes. "I'd like that," she breathed. And then, "When? Tonight?"

Steve's heart skipped a beat at the thought, but he knew she was footsore and weary, though she'd never admit it. "I might need to make reservations."

Peggy nodded briskly. "Tomorrow then, eight-o-clock sharp." Her voice trembled; she visibly marshaled her forces and added, with a sternness he found irresistible, "And don't you dare be late this time, Steve Rogers—don't you dare."

The reminder of their last radio conversation was poignant. Steve nodded firmly. "I'll be there," he promised, his own voice thick with emotion. Reading her permission in her eyes, he put his arm around her again. Peggy swiped at her eyes once more and then leaned into his side, her hand closed around a fistful of his jacket as though to reassure herself that he was real, alive, and here.

She had said goodbye to him long ago on this very spot. Now, something tentatively hopeful in Steve's heart whispered of new beginnings.

"I'll be there."

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He bade her goodnight on the steps of her apartment building. Peggy had rather hoped for a repeat of last night's kiss, but he just took both her hands in his with one of those little gestures she'd never thought to see again. They used to part that way near the end of the war, when both of them knew their feelings were beyond those of friends, but neither knew quite how to act about it.

"See you tomorrow, Peggy," he promised—and then, with a movement so shyly awkward that it was downright endearing, he leaned in and brushed her cheek with his lips. It was nothing like the kiss she wanted from him, but it still shot a thrill straight through her. "Good night."

"See you tomorrow," she echoed back, and for the first time since the report of his death, she felt a surge of hope and excitement in those words.

Because there would be a tomorrow—and he would be in it.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020 was a beast. It ate my creativity, my schedule, and my confidence—and I imagine you each suffered losses as well. But we've survived, and we're on the other side of it now! Here's hoping 2021 treats you better. Thank you for reading, and for your infinitely kind reviews. You mean more to me than you know. :)


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